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TO THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBI-ICAN PARTY OF ALABAMA. 

Fellow-Citizkns : The extraordinary exertions which are making to 
mislead the public mind on the approaching Presidential election, and, 
which, we are informed, have extended to Alabama ; induce «s to address 
you on the propriety of adopting a political organization in every county 
tlvrouffhont the State, which shall insure a union of etfort in defence of 
ou>* principles, as eifective as that with which they are assailed. The two 
great parties, which have always divided the country, are again in the field 
struffgling for mastery ; we, under our appropriate name and principles, con- 
tending for a strict construction of the Constitution, which shall protect 
the rights of the many against the encroachments of a privileged few ; 
while our opponents, under the liope of concealing their political identity, 
have assumed the new name of Whigs, but are true to their old principles: 
That ours is a Government not of equality, but of privilege ; and that un- 
der the Constitution, Congress can confer on favored individuals not only 
the exclusive privilege of manufacturing a paper currency for the whole 
Union, but the right to convert the whole revenues of the Government into 
so much bank capital, to be used and loaned out for their individual bene- 
fit, n^his is the true issue which is involved in the present contest of 
political parties, and, to insure another signal triumph to the republican 
cause, it is only necessary that the question should be fairly understood- 
The great body of the people, who have no favors to ask but an honest 
and eq'ial administration of the Government, are, and ever have been, 
essentially republican. If any portion of them have adhered with stricter ' 
fidehty than all the rest to these cherished principles, it has been the 
southern people. With them, republicanism is not merely a sentiment, 
consecriited by ediicatioti and their earliest political recollections, it is to 
them a citadel ol defencf; against the encroachments of the stronger sections 
of the Confederacy; a fortress for all their rights and institutions against 
the assanhs of a tariff, a bank, or their still more formidable enemy, aboli- 
tion. With what propriety, then, can the southern people, unless under a 
most woful misconception of the contest, be expected to throw their strength 
against the rn election of a Chief Magistrate, who, by his unflinching sup- • 
port of republican principles, has been designated by his opponents, "A' 
northern Fresid'tif with .southern principles." 

But, fellow citizens, in relying on the justice of our cause, and the strength 
of our principles, let us not utiderrate the efforts of our adversaries to mislead 
and deceive the peo|,le. It is not Gen. Harrison's popularity we have to meet; 
it is not the naked fa^-e or the naked weapons of^onr old Federal opponents 
we have to coiiiend airainsi ; it is their still more powerful allies which are to 
give heat and violence to the contest. The xoliole f) nuking power of the conn- 
try, with a very Wvj hoiiorahle exce[)tionR, has taken up arms against the 
preirC'it Adii Jnistration. Thennniberof these institutions is above eight hun- 
dred, dispersed through every State and Territory in the Union. To judge of 



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their power and influence, it is sufficient to say ; that, at ihe period of the 
general suspension of specie payments, there was due to them from the 
people, the enormous sum of five hundred millions of dollars. What a 
weight of influence is this to throw around the consciences and opinions 
of men in a contest, by which the banks are struggling to regain their lost 
power and privileges ! Is it to be wondered at, that four-fifths of the 
political press, the citadel of popular rights, have surrendered at discretion 
to this immense power, and are doing its bidding by writing up General 
Harrison and writing down Mr. Van Bnren ? Need we be surprised at the 
books, pamphlets, documents, essays, speeches, caricatures, and lives of 
General Harrison, with pictorial representations, which are pouring in upon 
a central committee of members of Congress at this place, who frank them 
off in the proportion of wagon-loads to the bushels sent by the Republi- 
can members? Need we wonder at the perfect organization of this party 
throughout every State, and in every county in the Union? That this 
central committee liave found their way to almost every post office in 
A-labama ; and that every human means are used to cause the people to 
ground their arms before these potentates of the paper system, and the 
political party with which they are allied. Need we wonder, that when 
(the makers of paper money have so much at stake in the comitig elections, 
ibey should avail themselves of a pecuniary pressure in England, still 
more intense than exists in this country— a pressure which the board of 
irade of the great manufacturing town of Manchester have proven conclu- 
sively to be produced by the joint action of the Bank of England and 
British bankers — a pressure which has reduced our cotton in English 
markets to the lou,-est price ; — need we be surprised, that this moment 
should be seized on as a favorable one, to increase the pecuniary suiTering^ 
of the people, with a view of furnishing ground of accusation against the 
present Administration? Need we be surprised that travelling emissaries 
of bank power should be sent abroad to preach to the people, that the hard 
times are produced by the Sub-Treasury policy of the Administration, 
before that policy has been either adopted or put in force. 

In reply to this clamor of hard times, we put the question to the banks ; — 
why they, who have the exclusive privilege of furnishiug a bank-paper 
currency, have not furnished the country with a sufficient and sound paper 
medium? We hold them to their responsibility. and demand an answer to 
the question. The Sub-Treasury, which they affect to dread, has not been 
put in force, and the banks are, from the necessities of the case, to a great 
extent the depositories of the public money. The bills of all specie-paying 
hanks are still received in payment of public dues. The legislatures of the 
several States have imjx)sed no disabilities on them. On the contrary, it 
has been matter of exultation on the floor of (.'ongress, and in the opposition 
press, that democratic legislatures have shrunk from the responsibility of 
enforcing any ineusure of restriction or Ibrfeiture on the suspended banks. 
In this condition of exemption from all legislative interference on the part 
of the States or the Federal Government, why do not the banks relieve the 
present pressure? \{ able, where is their apology for not doing it, except a 
determination to drive the peopk-, by suflering, against the present Admin- 
istration? \i livable, docs it not prove the utter worthlessness of these in- 
stitutions, and of bank circulation? Why should they throw the blame on 
the Government, which has no control over the ([uestion, except in the col- 
lection of its own revenues, which U now does in, bank paper, and which 



the present Sub-Treasury bill does not propose to discomiime for years to 
come? If the banks, when tfuy have every thing in their own itay, are 
not able or willing to furnish a sufficiency of sound currency for the de- 
mands of the country, they might as well be abolished, and let us return to 
a metallic currency at once. 

The first man: fetation of relief under tlie present pressure has been, not 
from the banks, but from private capitalists. Money is now abundant in 
New Yqrk on good security, at lass than the legal rate of interest ; and we 
have the authority of the Whig correspondent of the National Intelligencer, 
that in that city, the difficulty is not in finding lenders at legal interest, but 
sound 6or/o;rcr5 ; so utterly has the bank system destroyed anything hke 
sound credit. 

But, fellow-citizens, whatever are the odds against us iu this contest, we 
look with confidence to the people, as the only power which can triumphant- 
ly sustain the cause of equality, against the powerful foes by which it is 
assailed. It is a question for the industrious producing classes — mechanics 
and sturdy agriculturists of the country — how far they will degrade the 
pursuits of labor, by giving to the manufacture of paper money an ascend- 
ency, which shall rnake labor still more tributary to the exactions of the 
paper system. From the beginning of time, a perpetual war has been 
■waged by ^privilege on popular rights. The same struggle is still going 
on, for the purpose of giving to the cormorant appetite of the banks, a 
larger slice from the loaf of labor ; and it is for this reason, we urge on 
you, to take timely means to arm the people, in defence of the people. Let 
them but know that the banks have been for three years urging a doubtful 
battle with the Government, for the possession and use of the public purse, 
and for the prii'ilcge of having a factitious credit given to their notes, by 
being received in exclusive payment of the public dues. Let them know 
that "this has been avowedly the ground of dispute between political parties 
ever since the time when, by a general suspension, these faithless deposi- 
tories reduced the Government, with a redundant Treasury, to temporary 
bankruptcy ; let it be known that, for resisting this claim of bank privilege, 
Mr. Van Buren has been the doomed victim of bank vengeance ; let them 
know that the party sustaining the insolent pretensions of these purse- 
proud corporations, have brought forward General Harrison as a candidate 
for the Presidency, vvith the avowed intention of restoring these privileges 
to the banks ; let it be known who constituted the convention by which he 
was nominated — how little the great productive classes, who fill the ranks 
of the Republican party, had to do with that nomination ; let them, in 
short, comprehend, v.'hat we believe to be the true issue, whether the banks 
or the. people are to govern this country, and we have no iear of the 
verdict, which the popular voice will pronounce. 

But, fellow-citizens, vvc cannot close this communication, without bring- 
ing to your notice, what we honestly believe to be another element of Gen. 
Harrison's strength, Vvhich, thongli not as powerful as the one already 
mentioned, is, perhaps, still more dangerous to tiie South. We will not 
stop to inquire what are the opinions and feelings of General Harrison on 
the absorbing svibject of abolition. We will, for the present, suppose, as 
his friends ura;e, that he is free from the infection of this foul fanaticism ; 
but we cannot help reflecting, that public men are more or less under the 
control of the party by which they are brought into power; and that it is 
often more important to examine the principles of tlir.t party than of the 



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individual they propose for office. This is more particularly just, in rela- 
tion to a Presidential candidate, and the party by which he is sustained, 
for his success invariably brings that party into power and office. To test 
General Harrison by this rule, what are his claims on the South. It will 
be recollected that, in the convention by which he was nominated, he re- 
ceived not a single vote from any slave-holding State. The southern por- 
tion of the convention, after being outvoted, acquiesced in the nomination; 
but not until by a decisive vote they had expressed their preference for 
another. So irreconcilable were the opinions of that convention, they ad- 
journed without adopting, in the iorni of a public address, any exposition 
of their principles, or the prii^ciples of their candidate ; and, from that day 
to this, tlie opinions of both the convention and the nominee on this vital 
question, have been purposely kept from the public. More recenlly, a 
great national convention of Whig young men, purporting to represent 
every p .rtion of the Union, assembled in Baltimore, and numbered, accord- 
ing to their own accounts, twenty thousand persons ; and yet this immense 
assemblage of the party passed off without adopting any address, or avow- 
ing a single political principle, except their determination to jflace them- 
selves in power. If there was no contrariety of feeling, why did they not 
publish an address ; and if General Harrison owes nothing to the support 
of the Abolitionists, why docs he not come out boldly, and denounce them 
and their wicked designs. In striking contrast to the policy of our op- 
ponents, in not trusting the people with an avowal of their princifiles — a 
policy new in the history of parties in this country, and based upon 
a feeling of mistrust toward the people — the Democratic convention 
which nomiiifited Mr. Van Buren on the fiftli of the present month, among 
other resolutions defminir their principles, and to which wc are proud to 
call the aitention of the southern people ; — unanimonsl}^ 

'•' Resolved, That Congress has no power, mulcr the Constitution, to interfere with cir control 
the domesiic instiimions of the i>eveml Sttites. and that such .Slates are the .*olc and proper 
judges of eve'-y thin;? appertaining to their own alFairs, not prohibited by the Constitu'ion; tliat 
all efforts of the Abolitionists, or others, made lo induce Conjrrcss to interfere with questions of 
slavery, or lo take incipient steps in relation thereto, arc calcuhted to lead lo the most alarming 
and dangerous consequences; and that all sudi ellbrts have an inevitable tendency lo diminish 
the happiness of the people, and endanger the stability and permaurnry of the Union, and 
ought not lo be countenanced by any friend to our political institutions." 

The Democratic State Convention in Ohio, and most of the Democratic 
Legislatures, have openly denounced abolition and the Abolitionists, We 
challenge our opponents to show v:hen a Whig conccnliniK a }V/ii>:^ Legis- 
lature, or any otiur Whig associatimi in the nou slavt holding Slates, have 
littered a senlinievt of di^af) probation of the AboUtionisls or ihr.ir incen- 
diary schemes. Mr. A'iin 13urcn luis not failed to respond to every call 
which has been made on him in relation to this question, by expre>sing 
his determination lo use the powers with vv'hich he is invested by the Con- 
stituiion, in opposing every project of these incendiary aofiiatnrs ; and yet 
General Harrison, from considerations which none can mistake, closes 
his lips on the subject. 

If the silence of Cieneral Harrison, taken in connexion with tlie circum- 
stances under which he obtained his nomination in preference to Mr. Clay, 
the idol of the Whig party, did not sinJiciently disclose the abolition agency 
by which he is presented lor the Presidency, a secret circular issued from 
Albtmy, by S. 13e\vitt IJloedgoocI, a letiding Abolition Whig, has been 
brought to light, and republished for some weeks without its authenticityr 



being questioned, so far as we knov: : wiiicli fully discloses tiie means by 
v/hicli It was effected. This secret circular, it was said, was sent to the 
Whig delegates in the non slaveholding States, as soon as they were nomi- 
nated to the convention : and, among many reasons why General Harrisoa 
rxirdd be elected, and Mr. Clay cotdd tioi, the circular says of Mr. Clay, 
" tke Abolitionists generally icill oppose him^^'' while General Harrison 
was represented as a candidate '•'• free from these ohjeciionsP 

But the following paroxj'sm of abolition extacy from the Emancipator, 
the abohtion orgauin New York, in the incautious moment of receiving 
the first news of General Harrison's nomination, is conclusive : 

" The Harrisbcrg Contention. — Well, tiie agony is over, and Heniy Clay is — laid iipun 
tiie shelf. And no man cf ordinary intelligence can doubt or deny that it is the anti-slavery 
feeling of the North which has done it. in connexion with his owli ostentatious and infamous 
pro-slavery demonstrations in Congress. Praise to God for a great anti slavery victory. A 
man. of high talents, of great distinction, of long political services, of boundless personal jwpu- 
iarity, has been opealy rejected for the Presidency of this great Picpublic, on account of his 
•devotion to slavery. Set up a monument of progress there. Let the winds tell the tale — let 
the slaveholders hear the news — let foreign nations hear it — let O'Connell hear it — let the 
slaves hear it — a slaveholder is incapitated for the Presidency of the United States. The 
reign of slavocracy is hastening to a close. The rejection of Henry Clay by the Whig Con- 
vention, taken in connexion with all the circumstances, is one of the heaviest blows the mon- 
ster slavery has received in this countiy." 

Again, read the foilovdng exultations of the notorious Garrison : 

" Proiii Garrison's Liberator. 

" KcMiN.iTioN OF Genk.^.'J, Hakkison. — The National Whig Convention, assembled at Hani.;- 
burg on the Gih instant, nominated William Henry Harrison for the office of President of the 
United Slates. On the lirst and second ballot, the vote stood— for Henry Clay, 103 ; for Har- 
rison, 94 : forWiufiield Scott. 57. On the third ballot, the TOte was— for Harrison, 148; for 
Clay, 90 ; for Scott, 16. All ike slave States ivent for Clay. We regard this as another impor- 
tant sign of the times — as a sig'nal 'lefcat of the slavckolding power in this countrij. Had it iiot 
been fcr Abolitionism, Henry Clay would undoubtedl);- have been nominated. We have faith 
to believe that no slaveholder v-iU' ever again Ijc permitted to Jill the Presidential office in this 
Repviiic.'' 

The Le Roy Gazette, once edited by Mr. Gates, a AVhig Abolition Mem- 
ber of Congress from ISew York, says : 

" Very much like, indeed ! The editor of the Ohio paper abandoned the Whigs heaiv.sc they 
'r^.ominclcd the Abolitionists, and joined the Loco Focos because they v:cnl for the dovgh-faces ; 
while "xe.left the Jackson 'paMy because it adhered to slavery, and united n- ilk the Whigs becans<: 
thsy supported abolition!" , 

The following extract of a letter from the same Mr. Gates shows further 
ttae hopes of the Abolitionists from General Harrisons election : 

" Tin will have seen by the last Philanthropist, that General Harrison is actually a member 
cf an Abolitionist society,' and, in 1822, claimed not to be in favor of slavery at all, and e.'^c used 
himself for his vote on t'hc Missouri and Arkansas questions, on the ground of constitutional 
objections, which, con-^istently with his oaih to support the Con.'<titution, he thought he could 
Tiot disregard. He also claims that he was the first member of Congress to propose the pro- 
hlbitjcn of slavery forever iii the Territory above Missouri. He says, while he has been the 
iiieans of liberating manv slaves, he h<is never placed one in bondage. 

" Whether these explanations, taiccn in connexion with the fad that his Vincennes speech 
'vas delivered at a time when the principles of modern abolition were imperfectly understood 
-.a Ohio, will render liim so far acceptable to Abolitionists in your section, as to induce them 
to Tote for him in preference to Van Buren, who has thrown himself so fully into the embraces 
of the South, to secure the .slavcholding Jnrlueiice, I am of course unable to predict.'' 

In a letter from a Mr. Hance, a Whig Abolitionist, published in the '= Phi- 
knthropist" of March 17, the writer saj^s : 

" Have the Abolitionists not clrca-dv reason to congratnlaie thnnselves on the concessions made ta 
'iheir in-lmnce in the noniruitiun of ('ieiic'^fd Harnsr>n ? Most assuredly they harp. Who w ihe-re 



tkut call hdkix thai General Ilarrlsod would iutct h-ysnihe Wiua caHdulate^had it not bei,\, j\r 
Clay's anii abolUion speech in the United States Senate last, sinliig ? Is not thk HARmSBURC 

NOMINATION A GREAT AEOUTION VICTORY, ACQUIRED VVITIIOUT A SINGLK DIRFXT EFFORT OF OU'iS ? AtuL 

i(^h<it does this promise ns in fulling if we nnlij remain true to ov.r first principles.'' 

If the length of this address \vould permit, we could multiply proofs ot 
this identity of the abolitionists with tlic Whig party of the North, to an ex- 
tent whicli would astound the soutliern people, and perhaps none more 
than those; who, l)y clamor and the activity of our opponents, have without 
due reflection declared for (General Harrison, and who we know to be as 
decidedly opposed to the Abolitionists as we are ourselves. Most of these 
we are certain have avowed their preference for General Harrison with bof. 
a limited knowledge of his character or his principles, and with no othei: 
feeling- than that of opposition to Mr. A^an Boren, thus furnishing another 
instarice of the reckless extent to which embittered party feeling sometimes 
carries the most patriotic and worthy. We arc greatly deceived if the dis- 
.seminalion of information as to the views of the Abolitionists, and the pur- 
poses they expect to secure by the election of General Harrison, does «'it 
cause thousrtnds hi the ^outh to pause, and, ultimately, to retrace the steps 
into which they have been inconsiderately hurried. 

To that portion of General Harrison's supporters, who live by banks, and 
the profits of making paper money, and who have joined in the warfare 
against Mr. Van Buren, for no other purpose than to maintain the paper 
t>ystem, we have little doubt that even abolition itself, has fewer horror.s, than 
the prostration of bank power and the loss of bank privileges. 

In short, we believe the election of General Harrison would be tlte 
triumpli of northern Federalism, bankism. and abolitionism: that it would 
^3ring into power a political party whose ascendency would be fatal to the 
rights and institutions of the South ; that it would be followed by a strong- 
Federal (government, a high tariff, a mammoth Federal bank, a system of 
internal improvements by the Federal Government, and by all the concom- 
itants of Federal usurpation, which are subversive of the rights of the Strles, 
and the hberties of the people. 

W>l. R. fvING, 
tJ. <;. CLAY, 
DIXON H. LEWIS. 
OAVID HUBBARD, 
RKUBEN CHAP-MAN. 



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